• Howdy! Welcome to our community of more than 130.000 members devoted to web hosting. This is a great place to get special offers from web hosts and post your own requests or ads. To start posting sign up here. Cheers! /Peo, FreeWebSpace.net
managed wordpress hosting

Question about RAM

Nick

Well-Known Member
NLC
Just to start off with, I already know that 32-bit systems can only utilize 4GB of RAM and that when you install 4GB, you don't get all of it available.

That being said, I'm curious why my motherboard doesn't recognize all the ram?

I just upgraded my [older] system from 1GB (512MBx2) of crappy Ultra DDR400 ram to 4GB (1GBx4) of OCZ High Performance Dual-Channel ram. I boot up Windows and I see 3.37GB of RAM. I expected that. What I was wondering about was why when the motherboard boots up it says there's only ~3500MB of ram. Even if it can't be used, shouldn't I be able to see the full amount there? The board is a ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe.


Also, kind of related, Windows XP has been acting a little screwy since the upgrade. It has seemed to straighten out for the most part but I'm still getting some Windows failed to start due to a recent change in software or hardware. Should I just do a clean install of Windows XP? I also added a SATA (first time I actually used a SATA connection, and I bought the board in 2004 :eek2:) DVD-Burner at the same time, if that makes any difference.
 
You might have a faulty RAM module. This would explain mostly every issue. Grab a copy of memtest over at http://www.memtest.org/ and let it run overnight. If your ram passes the recursive tests, it's something else.

If it passes, try doing a BIOS update. If that still doesn't fix the issues, try a clean install of Win XP; you haven't changed any big part of your system so you shouldn't have to to a clean install but Windows can be finicky with these thing sometimes.

I seriously think Windows is not the problem here but I've seen to weirder crap
 
Last edited:
I already ran Memtest before I posted. It went for about 2 hours and I came back and it said something to the effect of "There was no errors on the pass, you can exit now". That's probably not exact, but I know it said it was done and there were no problems.

Should I do it again or should I move ahead to the BIOS update?
 
32bit can only utilize 3GB of RAM, that's why you don't see you full 4GB. Update to 64bit and you will.
 
Back
Top